


By force

by Antigone_Sycamore



Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, I don’t even go here, No Beta, One Shot, Post Season 2, Slow Burn, The Force, The Mandalorian (TV) Spoilers, Work In Progress, how does it actually work though?, i did a thing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-03-12 18:28:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28514973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Antigone_Sycamore/pseuds/Antigone_Sycamore
Summary: The last thing she sees is the Mandalorian, tilting his head curiously as he towers above her.
Relationships: Din Djarin/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 15





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I really have no idea what I’m doing here. What can I say? I watched 'The Mandalorian' and fell in love with Pedro Pascal. It happens. No apologies.
> 
> Any and all mistakes are mine. Be kind. This is neither my fandom, nor my language.

***

Oddly enough, his first instinct is not to kill, but to protect. She notices this right away. It is evident in the way he lifts the beskar gauntlet to her shoulder and, without missing a beat, pushes his body in front of hers, spinning the both of them in one fluid motion. The blaster shots fired at them still hit their target square, but they are now absorbed by the beskar plates at his back. It still must hurt, she thinks, being hit by so much light in such a dark place.

She doesn’t have much time to dwell on the matter, though. The Mandalorian angrily grunts and pushes the both of them to the ground and into cover. Her forehead collides with the stone floor beneath them, _hard_ , as his armored body pins her to the ground. 

“What did you do?” he snaps close to her ear, modulated voice tight even through the vocoder of the impenetrable silver helmet.

She grunts beneath the weight of the hard beskar. Anger flaring up inside, igniting like a match. 

“I had it under control until you showed up, bounty hunter,” she snaps back, pushing against his chest plate in an attempt to at least see who’s shooting at them. His body doesn’t yield, of course, as blaster fire erupts all around them. He fires back from behind the flimsy cover the bench in front of them provides. 

Loose strands of her hair stick to her forehead and she pushes them aside in annoyance, desperately wishing for her own blaster, when she finally catches a glimpse of their attackers. She feels the small hairs on the back of her neck lift: they’re _imperial_. Stormtroopers. She’s outnumbered. Outgunned. Her mind starts spinning with the presence of the _Empire_. Panic bubbles up from deep within, something dark, _bottomless_ , flickers at the edges of her vision, of her mind. _What are they doing here? How did they find her?_

Amidst the commotion and the blaster fire, the bounty hunter’s gloved hand curls around her upper arm, pulling her to her feet again. She kicks against one of the tables in front of them, sends bottles and shattered glass flying their attackers’ way.

It’s not nearly enough and she twists and turns in the Mandalorian’s relentless grip as he drags her along with him, towards the back door, hand around her biceps tight like a vise. 

“Stop fighting me,” he hisses in-between blaster shots. But fighting is all she’s ever known. She’ll go down kicking and screaming, reaching out to all of them in blind fury and unimaginable terror. She feels all of it, suddenly, without her conscious doing or her intend. All the things surrounding her. The stormtroopers and their fear, their greed and their dread. The flares of energy cutting through the room, searing everything in their way. The cold smooth beskar of the Mandalorian's armor and the profound sadness of the man beneath it. She sends all of it flying with a scream, everything spinning out of control. 

The anger drains from her body as suddenly as it ignited. She stumbles to the ground, her vision blurring around the edges. 

The last thing she sees before it fades out altogether is the Mandalorian, tilting his head curiously, as he towers above her.

***


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She hears a loud _cling_ followed by a muffled swear from the cockpit, distinct static filtering through the small corridor in front of her.
> 
>  _The Mandalorian._
> 
> He’s still here.

***

The ship’s engine rattles and jolts beneath her when she wakes up in the small bunk. Her eyes sting and there’s a dull ache to her skull, but other than that she appears to be uninjured. Surprisingly _alive_. She tries to take inventory of her immediate surroundings. The strange ship with its smooth bleak surfaces tinted in grays and blacks that can only mean _imperial_. Her stomach drops at the thought. She’s been trying to shake them for days now. Without much success. Wherever she goes, the imps seem to be there already. 

She hears a loud _cling_ followed by a muffled swear from the cockpit, distinct static filtering through the small corridor in front of her.

 _The Mandalorian._

He’s still here.

She makes her way to the cockpit on tip toes and, _sure enough_ , there he is, stoic and impenetrable in the pilot’s seat as he steers the shuttle through the planet’s dense atmosphere. He turns his head slightly, acknowledging her presence.

“What happened?” she says.

“You passed out.”

“And you thought it would be a good idea to steal an imperial shuttle, Mandalorian?” The harsh accusation makes its way over her lips before she can reign her temper back in. She knows almost nothing about this stranger, except that he _is_ , in fact, a Mandalorian. And a bounty hunter. A predator. It’s a safe bet that she isn’t in any less trouble than with the imps.

He just turns and tightens his grip on the shuttle’s joystick, the dull lights of the cockpit reflecting off the beskar armor. 

“Strap in,” he instructs curtly, “we’ve got company.”

She hears the distinct high-pitched _roars_ of the TIE fighters before she actually sees them. It’s at least two of them, maybe more, closing in fast. She scrambles into the copilot’s seat next to him. Just in time before the shuttle takes a sharp dive back towards the surface, pressing her into the seat with the brunt force of the planet’s gravitational pull and the shuttles’s thrusters. She grips onto the seatbelt with both hands, knuckles turning white against her skin, and grits her teeth.

The Mandalorian doesn’t even stir as he pilots the shuttle through the clouds and suddenly back up again, turning and rotating the whole thing in evasive patterns as the fighter pilot’s missing shots blare past them. An imperial transport shuttle is no match for two TIE fighters, though. Not even with a Mandalorian at the helm. They are sitting ducks.

She reaches for the weapons array on instinct, the control panels still like second nature to her even after all this time. She rotates the rear laster canon towards one of the fighters at their tail. The Mandalorian’s silver helmet turns her way, briefly, before executing another full spin, pressing her back into her seat yet again with an angry grunt.

“What are you doing?” His level voice is slightly elevated through the vocabulator of his helmet to cut through the noise but, otherwise, it betrays no sentiment at all. This is the second time in one day she’s found herself in a blaster fight with this guy. Laying low hadn’t worked so bad before he showed up. She could have made her way off of this godforsaken backwater shithole; quietly, without too much of a fuss, but with a Mandalorian in tow - or, _arguably_ , vice versa - that doesn’t appear to be much of an option anymore. She’s been dodging blaster fire left and right since the minute he’s stepped in front of her. The bounty hunter, on the other hand, keeps barreling on undeterred, the imps’ blaster fire deflected by impenetrable shiny beskar and an ample amount of cockiness. 

“What do you think I’m doing?” she shouts back over the blaring roars of the TIE fighters, annoyance clearly seeping into her voice despite the fear, “I’m buying us some time.” 

She pulls the trigger at the first opportunity, makes every shot count and hits the TIE fighter at their tail directly in one of its huge solar panels. The pilot breaks off the attack and loses control. All she can see at the edge of the shuttle’s narrow side windows are a few flares of the explosion as the vessel erupts into a fireball.

“Not too bad,” the Mandalorian mutters dryly. 

“I told you. We don’t have time for this.”

There are at least two more and, even though this wasn’t just a lucky shot, they have to get out of there as soon as possible. No time to celebrate.

She reaches for the navigational controls to her left, starts keying in the calculations for the jump to hyperspace. Another blast hits them into the deflector, the ship straining audibly under the pressure. They won’t last much longer.

“We have to make the jump. _Now_!”

“Not before we’ve cleared the thermosphere or we are toast.”

“I don’t care. Make the bloody jump. I’d rather be toast than being killed by the imps!” 

The arcane black visor turns her way again, unfazed by her outburst.

“Speak for yourself, women,” but he reaches up, flicks a few buttons and finally pulls the lever to make the jump.

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is really just self indulgent doodling. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ English isn't my first language and there is probably a load of really stupid errors in this. Feel free to point them out. I honestly appreciate it!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Mandalorian stares at her. The clean edges of his impenetrable mask firmly in place. A smooth dark surface devoid of any emotion.

***

The eerie silence is deafening after the ship makes the jump into hyperspace. Her trembling fingers briefly still over the controls as her racing heart hammers against her rib cage; loud enough she fears the stranger might hear it in the confined space of the shuttlecraft.

The Mandalorian spins his seat her way, his dark visor suddenly zooming in on her, the bleak cold metal an indecipherable mask. Her heart stutters forward uneasily in her chest as she wills her hands to stop shaking. She’s never met a Mandalorian before but the stories tell of gruesome death and of relentless pursuit. He’s a fighter through and through, a predator even. All hard edges and beskar steel. She’d think he’d cut a striking figure in his shining silver armor - if he wasn’t about to back her into a corner. 

Nevertheless, she swallows past the lump of fear in her throat. There are more pressing matters to attend to right now.

“With a stolen shuttle, we are a light year trail on some imperial screen,” she points out, “We got to find a way to lose the shuttle.”

He rises to his full height, backing her up against her seat, beskar flashing dangerously in the cramped space of the small cockpit. _Fight or flight?_ He’s almost twice her size and there is nowhere to hide.

“Why are the imperials chasing you?” he demands.

“Chasing me?” The high pitch of her voice clearly betrays her rising hysteria - and her _anger_ -, “you are the one who stole an imperial shuttle. Maybe they are after _you_.” Her fingers defiantly fly over the navigational controls again before she can think twice, already plotting in another course. 

“Don’t touch that!” he snaps, finally a trace of something akin to exasperation to the modulated static of his voice. When she fails to respond to his command, she’s being pressed back into the seat by a gloved hand on her shoulder. The motion isn’t violent or aggressive. If anything he’s being assertive, _gentle_ even. Almost as if he’s scolding a child. With emotions already running this high, it makes her snap nonetheless. 

She grips onto the metal bracers around his arm on instinct, tries to push up against him, dread and fury rising in equal measure. 

“Don’t touch _me_ ,” she spits. But there is no give in the beskar or in the man beneath, his armor cold and unforgiving under the tips of her trembling fingers. He doesn’t fight back, but his grip tightens on her shoulder. Almost hard enough to bruise now.

“Let go!” She twists and turns under his grip, desperately trying to calm her racing thoughts, control her fear and her ever rising anger as she’s been taught so many _many_ times. If she has to fight him, she has to do it with a clear and sharp mind, not with brunt force or blind rage. She grits her teeth and pushes up against the metal.

That’s when she feels it.

Something passes between them. No more than an image in the infinite void of the universe. She sees a creature. Small and innocent, a wrinkled green forehead cooing in wonder. _A child._ She feels fear that is not her own, affection…. _love_. It is gone before she knows it. Dissolved into the void it emerged from unbidden.

The Mandalorian yanks his hand back as if he’s been burned. 

“I’m sorry,” she stammer, anger and fear yet again deflating like a ballon. She feels like she’s overstepped some sort of line.

The black visor lifts from his own hand to her face again, head tilted slightly to the side; regarding her. There is no indication there that he felt the strange connection. She’s about to turn back to the control panel, at least check the readouts for any sign of pursuit, when she hears the Mandalorian sigh audibly beside her. It is the first time she’s heard him do it. A strange sound, she thinks, very much at odds with his otherwise unfazed and stoic demeanor. So much so that she has to turn and look at him again. The Mandalorian stares right back. The sharp edges of his impenetrable mask firmly back in place. A smooth dark surface devoid of any emotion. 

It is her turn to sigh.

***


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “This is the way,” the bounty hunter suddenly proclaims ominously beside her, as if that settles the matter once and for all.

***

 _Jakku_ is the worst kind of a backwater shithole of a planet she can possibly think of. It is infinite dunes of fine sand that seeps into every crack, every fissure; no trees, no shade, no cover. A place made for the scum and lowlife of the galaxy; for the ones trying to outrun their past; the ones without a name, without a claim to an identity. 

More importantly, however, it is close and it provides exactly the kind of discretion they need to dump a stolen imperial ship. 

She rummages through the belly of the shuttle in search for a change of cloth, a uniform maybe, or a helmet; anything, really, to disguise her appearance, to cover her already sunburned face and shield it from the obtrusive looks of _jakku’s_ resident thugs and outlaws. She wishes she could cover her face forever. Hide behind the anonmyity of an unreadable mask for the rest of her life, just like the beskar-clad Mandalorian in the cockpit. But the shuttle has been picked clean already and all that she can find is a dark gray cape that has the distinct stench of old sweat and fear to it. She wraps it around her shoulders anyway and pulls the hood over her head to cover the ashen strands of hair that spill over her shoulders.

The Mandalorian stirs slightly but doesn’t comment when she re-enters the cockpit. They’ve called a fragile truce that is uneasy at best. He keeps his distance. She keeps her mouth shut - for the most part, anyway.

She sits down in the copilot’s seat beside him, feigning disinterest.

“What?” he says into the thick silence between them, modulated voice underlined with a hint of annoyance.

She shifts uneasily in her seat. 

“I was thinking- You should probably cover up, too. Every imperial spy in this godforsaken place will be on the lookout for a tall guy strolling around in shinny silver iron.”

The bounty hunter shrugs beneath the beskar amor, unfazed, “I’m a Mandalorian.”

“Yes. We’ve established that.”

He flicks a few buttons and switches on the control panel, commencing the shuttle’s landing sequence, “I’ve been hunted for the beskar all my life.”

There is a strange edge to his voice again. Something that makes her pause.

“And you’ve never considered to just leave it behind?”

He doesn’t answer. The minutes stretch between them again and she redirects her attention to the controls in front of her as the shuttle glides through the planet’s atmosphere. 

“This is the way,” the bounty hunter suddenly proclaims ominously beside her, as if that settles the matter once and for all.

She looks at him again but he keeps the black visor firmly trained on _jakku’s_ sand-coloured horizon in front of them.

She’s beginning to wonder about this stranger, who, somehow, appears just as lost as she is herself; _lonely_ even. She wonders about the life he must have led, the people he must have killed. Always on the hunt, moving from location to location, never long enough in one place to be considered a friend. She thinks about the freedom it must entail. And the isolation. 

“Do you have a name?”

The static rustle of his synthesized voice betrays no emotion at all when it cuts through the silence again, but when she looks at the Mandalorian, the silver helmet is turned her way, piercing in its intensity, somehow, as he waits expectantly.

 _Does she have a name._ She thinks about this, averting her eyes on impulse, trying to shield herself from his penetrating gaze. She’s had many names; has been called many things. _Daughter, sister, traitor, rebel._ One shouldn’t have to think so hard about their name.

“Sky,” she eventually says; because it was once true and she is suddenly overcome with the impulse to give something real, something _true_ to this fathomless lonely stranger, “they call me Sky.”

***


End file.
